"We are Ween"

It was 50 miles north of the Tower Theatre in New Hope, Pa., where Aaron Freeman and Mickey Melchiondo began their musical collaboration in 1984 as a pair of 14-year-olds toiling away, making weird, yet humorous home recordings under the names Dean and Gene Ween.

A few years later, they made their proper debut, singing about a guy named Fat Lenny, blood-sucking ticks and much more, first exploring their demented universe, which has garnered a cult following.

On Saturday night, 23 years after they first began making music together, the duo took to the the legendary Tower Theatre stage, where David Bowie’s “David Live” album was recorded in 1974.

After slowly moving to larger and larger venues for their hometown Philadelphia shows, Ween came to the Tower for the first time to support their newest and possibly best album, “La Cucaracha.”

And that fan base that they’ve accrued over the years didn’t let them down, filling the 3,100-seat theater for what was a 2-1/2 hour journey through Ween’s catalog. (The sell-out wasn’t unexpected considering they have sold out nearly every show in support of the new album.)

During their encore, the band reached back, plucking a 17-year-old song from their second album “Pork Roll Egg & Cheese.”

“We have to play this one,” said Dean Ween, before the familiar bouncy tune about the decidedly local delicacy started up.

“So Mom, if you please, pass me the pork roll egg and cheese, if you please, on a kaiser bun,” sang Gene Ween, flashing back to the time when he would spend endless hours in Dean Ween’s bedroom as a teen.

But the show wasn’t as much of an autopsy of their early work as they are apt to do. Instead, they focused on their more accessible work of the past 15 years, giving fans the first live taste of “La Cucaracha,” released last month to their highest chart debut ever.

The band played eight songs from the album, from the creepy murder ballad “Object” and the muscular x-rated “My Own Bare Hands” to the downright danceable instrumental “Fiesta” and the “Flight of the Conchords”-esque “Your Party.”

While “Your Party” was stripped of the cool David Sanborn saxophone found on the album, the countrified “Learning to Love” maintained it’s prerecorded mid-song synth breakdown.

The flawless marathon of a show was a gift to fans, but from the smiles scrawled across the faces of Dean and Gene throughout the night, it was just as special for them.

It took nearly a quarter of a century, but the duo had finally graduated from a cramped bedroom to one of the biggest stages in the Philadelphia area.

“This is the first time we played the Tower,” Dean said toward the end of the show, not having to expand on the meaning of the big show.

And based on the roar of applause after he said it, their fans didn’t need one.